All political tyrants share a unique character trait in common: they immediately, and with great urgency, begin to block reality from affecting their agendas. John Kasich, the new governor of Ohio, has clearly identified himself as a tyrant.

As a member of numerous environmental, civic and political organizations, I frequently sign email petitions to my State and Federal representative as well as heads of governmental agencies overseeing a variety of interests which my organizations represent – the ACLU, Defender of Wildlife, NARAL and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are a few of the groups of which I am a member.

Easy, hassle-free, direct and courteous email petitioning systems have, over the course of the past 10 years, become the de facto method of communication between the people of this country and the representatives that they wish to address on almost any political, social or environmental issue. All politically conscious citizens throughout this country have come to rely upon these communication methods to easily and quickly address their representatives and it has gradually become incumbent upon democratically-minded representatives of our government to provide for and helpfully accommodate this increasingly popular and direct communication method.

Not so with many of the new Teabagging-Rethuglican crowd. Their objective has clearly been to present as many obstacles as they possibly could to impede the input of those who want to address them. They make boastful claims about wanting to represent all of the people but in reality, their rhetoric is nothing but subterfuge for what they really have in mind – repression of the voice of an overwhelming number of people they claim to represent.

John Kasich has reached a new low in these sorts of thwarting and denialing efforts. To wit: a recent sample of his first strategy to frustrate and deny public input on State issues related to environmental and wildlife stewardship. His tactic? Asking socially and environmentally-conscious citizens to answer an insolvable riddle before they are given the privilege of communicating with his office or the offices he oversees.